July 24/09 14:00 pm - Cascade Classic: Women's Stage 3

Posted by Editoress on 07/24/09

Everyone on Team TIBCO new Alison Starnes could ride a strong time trial. Now, everyone in the North American peloton knows it, too. Starnes stormed to a 2nd place finish in the Stage 3 Individual Time Trial of the Cascade Classic Thursday, finishing 0:10 behind stage winner Jessica Phillips (Lip Smackers) and 0:02 ahead of the reigning U.S. national time trial champion, Alison Powers (Team Type 1). The strong ride enable Starnes to jump from 16th overall to 6th overall, 1:25 behind race leader Evelyn Stevens (Webcor).

“I felt like I’d be top 10 today, and I was hoping to podium,” said Starnes, who is still only in her second year of racing at any level. “It was a good course. It’s roughly the same course that we’ll be doing nationals on next week, but a little longer. This gives me a lot of confidence going into nationals. That confidence helps you push through the pain. And time trials can be very painful.”

Starnes was just one of seven Team TIBCO riders who endured the pain of Thursday’s time trial extremely well. In fact, Joanne Kiesanowski, Julie Beveridge, Amber Rais, Katharine Carroll and Meredith Miller occupied the 7th through 11th spots on the stage, while Lauren Tamayo slotted in at 13th for the TT.

As a result, Team TIBCO is in the enviable position of occupying the 2nd through 4th positions in the overall standings with Rais, Carroll and Beveridge, who finished 3rd overall at Cascade last year, and is currently wearing the jersey of the best young rider in the race. All three are within 1:10 of the race leader, while Miller is sitting 9th overall at 2:00 back. Kiesanowski jumped from 35th to 14th overall at 2:54 back.

“I think we pretty clearly showed we have the strongest team in the race,” Rais said. “We’re in the perfect position. We have a lot of riders high up in the standings, and each one is threatening. We just have to race intelligently. Our goal is to get a TIBCO rider in the yellow leader’s jersey. It doesn’t matter which one of us. We need to be aggressive, but also ride smart.”

Friday marks the queen stage of the Classic, a 114.2 km beast that ends with the climb up to the ski station on Mt. Bachelor, topping out at nearly 6,400 feet (1,950 metres). It’s likely that the riders occupying the final podium on Sunday will be determined on the steep pitches of the final 5km of Friday’s stage.

“It’s gonna hurt tomorrow,” Starnes added. “Webcor will have their work cut out for them tomorrow. We have a lot of cards to play, and I expect we’ll play all of them.”